A lot of kids take their parents for granted. On Monday circumstances brought home to me how I took my kids for granted. Wilbur and I had a family over to dinner. The family has a ten year old boy. The main purpose of the evening was to teach the ten year old to ride a bike. After an hour and a half, he could balance while he pedaled two or three times before trying to catch himself with his feet. I gathered that to him tipping over on a bike was the equivalent to falling off the edge of the Grand Canyon. Every teeny bump or scrape prompted an anguished cry of "ahhh!" or "owww!"
Even though our family only had two tough males, it had five tough, reasonably physically fit females. It might have taken ten minutes to help our slowest learner figure out how to ride a bike. Don't ask me who the slowest learner was because I don't remember.
Petunia was the most cautious. I do remember that. At age seven Wilbur announced he was removing her training wheels. The wheels came off, and off she rode without a stutter. She hadn't needed the wheels for months, maybe years. If memory serves, Prudence mastered bike riding at four or five. After Orville was born my memory began to overload and started to short circuit, so I don't have a clear recollection about Hermione and Eglantine. It seems like age five saw them careening off down the drive on a bike. They can correct me if I'm having a brain cramp. It might have taken one of them as much as ten minutes to put together the balancing and steering before mastering bike riding.
I clearly remember Orville demanding his father remove his training wheels at age three - a couple weeks before his fourth birthday. Disbelief made that bike riding event memorable. He'd had the bike for just a few minutes before he said, "I don't need training wheels. I got this."
I thought all kids could master bike riding in ten minutes or less. I assumed all kids could "tough it" through a skinned knee or scraped elbow. After Monday, I realized I was mistaken. I was blessed to have kids who were talented, tough, and fit.
3 comments:
yes! it is true! I am amazing! :)
Wow, yeah I never thought of it as a very big deal, and every time I put makeup on, I'm still a little bit proud of my bike-battle scar on my chin, and I proudly display my scraped up knees when the subject of bike scars comes up.
I admit to feeling a little proud myself of how coordinated we all are after reading this blog. My son did the same thing as Orville and learned 2 months before he turned 4 how to ride a bike. It runs in the family!
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